As the train drew nearer the place of his birth, Paul grew quieter.  Old landmarks, nearly forgotten, began to appear and remind him of the past.

“What time do we get there?” he asked a passing brakeman.

“Eleven-thirty-four.”

Paul’s companion gave him a look of envy.

“You speak English well,” said he.

Paul didn’t like that, and took refuge behind one of those Slavonic indirections which are typical of the Russian mind—­an indirection hinting at mysterious purpose and power.

“There are times in a life,” said he, “when it becomes necessary to speak a foreign language well.”

They looked at each other then, and simultaneously they nodded.

“You are right, batuchka,” said the blonde giant at last, matching indirection with indirection.  “For myself, I cannot speak English well—­ah, no—­but I have a language that all men understand—­and fear—­and when I speak, the houses fall and the mountains shake their heads.”

His eyes gleamed and he breathed quickly—­intoxicated by the poetry of his own words; but Paul had heard too much of that sort of imagery to be impressed.

“A Bolshevist, sure enough,” he thought.

A familiar landscape outside attracted his attention.

“We’ll be there in a few minutes,” he thought.  “Yes, there’s the road ... and there’s the lower bridge....  I hope that old place at the bend of the river’s still there.  I’ll take a walk down this afternoon, and see.”

At the station he noted that his late companion was being greeted by a group of friends who had evidently come to meet him.  Paul stood for a few minutes on the platform, unrecognized, unheeded, jostled by the throng.

“The prodigal son returns,” he sighed, and slowly crossed the square....

Late in the afternoon a tired figure made its way along the river below the factory.  The banks were high, but where the stream turned, a small grass-covered cove had been hollowed out by the edge of the water.

“This is the best of all,” thought Paul after he had climbed down the bank and, sinking upon the grass, he lay with his face to the sun, as he had so often lain when he was a boy, dreaming those golden dreams of youth which are the heritage of us all.

“I was a fool to come,” he told himself.  “I’ll get back to the ship tomorrow....”

For where he had hoped to find pleasure, he had found little but bitterness.  The sight of the house on the hill, the factory in the hollow below the dam, even the faces which he had recognized had given him a feeling of sadness, of punishment—­a feeling which only an outcast can know to the full—­an outcast who returns to the scene of his home after many years, unrecognized, unwanted, afraid almost to speak for fear he will betray himself....

For a long time Paul lay there, sometimes staring up at the sky, sometimes half turning to look up the river where he could catch a glimpse of the factory grounds and, farther up, the high cascade of water falling over the dam—­the bridge just above it....